Funeral home operator Dignity PLC (LON:DTY) is likely to face a sizeable reduction in the scale and pricing of funerals after the government issued new advice on how funerals should proceed amid coronavirus.
Attendance should be limited to the deceased person’s household or close family members and social distancing should be maintained at the funeral as well as on the way to and from the funeral, the government said late on Tuesday.
If the deceased has neither household or family members in attendance, then it is possible for a "modest number" of friends to attend.
There should also be no contact with the deceased if they died of Covid-19, the disease that this novel strain of coronavirus causes.
“This will materially reduce the scale of funerals and is likely to result in a material reduction in price per funeral,” said analysts at broker Peel Hunt.
So far, the government has said 1,789 people have died in hospitals from coronavirus as of 1600 GMT on Monday, with more than 25,000 cases reported and many more likely that have not been tested.
The UK death rate for 2020, however, has been below the average for the past five years.
Dignity warned last month that it was also facing potential regulatory pressure as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) undertakes a review of the funeral industry and the financial services attached to it.
Shares in Dignity fell 7% to 258p on Wednesday morning.